


Diurnal Dreaming #12: Dancing

by maven



Series: Diurnal Dreaming [12]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 20:21:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/996157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maven/pseuds/maven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A change in a relationship leads to rethinking assumptions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diurnal Dreaming #12: Dancing

The song would be popular at teen dances, a tempo slow enough to allow close dancing but fast enough that it wasn't mandatory. I playfully undo a few buttons, swaying to the music and fully intending to play it up. I stop when I see her stricken expression.

"What is it Sara?" I feel myself tense.

"I... please don't," she whispers hoarsely.

For something as basic as taking off your clothes, stripping is a complex subject. It causes strange reactions when people find out and then again when they're confronted with it. You never know what the reaction is, no matter how well you know the person, because it seems to strike something almost primal, especially in lovers.

There are two common freak out points. My hands freeze on the opening of my shirt. "I don't need you to feel ashamed of me, Sara," I say. "Or retroactively jealous."

"No! Nothing you did or could ever, God, Catherine," she says, voice rising in anger. "That's not why." Her fists clench and I recognize frustration in her stance and tone. "I'm not good at this."

I feel my own anger break. "Then explain it to me," I ask softly.

"When you dance like that," she says, hands mimicking my moves. "It's like you're enticing and seducing the watcher. That's what is was for, right?" I nod and wait. "I don't want you to feel that you have to do that for me, to me. That's the best that I can explain it."

"And if I want to entice and seduce you?" I ask, hands dropping to my side.

"God, Catherine. You breathe and I'm enticed. You look at me and I'm seduced. Don't dance for me. Dance with me."

I take the two steps forward necessary to close the distance and into her arms. Her left hand cups my waist while her right holds my hand. It's not ballroom but its nice, moving around the living room as the song ends and another begins. She sort of hums under her breath, not committing to singing, with her eyes half closed. "Thank you," she says softly.

"What for?"

She shrugs. "For listening and letting me be insecure even if you don't understand exactly what I'm feeling."

"You never want us to feel like a performance, like a job. You want to be a full participant in the act."

Her eyes open wide and her smile broadens. "Yes. And while half of Las Vegas may have seen you take off your clothes," she adds, transferring my hand to her shoulder, "and some lucky ones may have helped you remove them in the past," she continues, her now free hand methodically undoing the remaining buttons on my shirt, "I'd like to think I'm the only one removing them now," she continues, pushing the shirt over my shoulders and letting it fall to the floor, "I have no reason to be jealous of people who were so unlucky to only see your body in the past. Not when I get to see all of Catherine Willows."

"I don't know why you say you're bad at words."

"Because I am. I'm sure there's a way to say all that with a lot less trauma and fewer words," she says, guiding my arms over my head and removing my tank top. "When do consider us to have started?"

"I'm not sure," I answer, wondering at the non sequitur. "It depends on what you're talking about. We started when you asked for the dollar bill. We started when you told me about your parents. We started the first time you looked at Lindsey as if she were ours instead of just mine. You're a complex person, Sara Sidle, there's never a single point with you."

"I've never said the words to you," she says softly. I don't need to ask what words.

"I've never said them to you, either," I counter. "Do you know the first time you said the words to me without saying them?" She shakes her head. "When you told me about your parents. I've had lots of people walk out on me because they didn't love me. You were the first willing to leave because they did," I slide my hands up and under her shirt to the small of her back and feel the explosion of shivers that run up and down her back. "I don't need to hear them to feel them. I've heard them before in the past but not felt them like you make me feel them. I like this way better."

"Me too," she says softly, hands stroking and massaging my now bare back. I wonder when this clothing inequity happened. "Your past is your past. It made you into who you are now and that's what I see. I don't see your past when I look at you."

"What do you see?" I ask.

"When I look at you," she quotes, "I can feel it. And I look at you, and I'm home."

I blink back the tears and move closer to rest my head on her shoulder, feeling her cheek rub against the top of my head. And I dance with her.

THE END


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